Saturday, May 05, 2007

I had my students use Basecamp this semester for managing their group projects. They gave it generally good reviews, but pointed out that they often forgot to update it. Therefore it didn't provide an accurate record of their accomplishments. But, they added, they realized that there's not much you can do about it -- there's no way around manual recording of your accomplishments.

This morning, I saw this on TechCrunch:

Seattle based Rescue Time actually tackles the issue of having to input data into a time management tool for the time poor head on by offering a web based personal time management service that takes its input via software. The software tracks what you are doing on your computer at any given time, then uploads the data to the service for later review.

Friday, May 04, 2007

What the heck happened to it? Google took it over and closed it to new subscriptions late last year. I had expected them to unveil it under the Google framework in February, but here we are in May. Which brings up the question that Howard Rheingold asks:

Johndan talked recently about spimes (at WIDE and CCCC), so when I saw this post, I clicked through. Sterling takes a while to get to the point, but the spime idea is really interesting. Stuff like Wakoopa and SlifeShare seems to get closer to these, but in terms of interactions of applications rather than artifacts.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Translation: We'll be courageous, if that's what you want! It reminds me of the scene in The Life of Brian in which Brian tells the crowd that they are all individuals, and they unanimously repeat "Yes, we are all individuals."

Steve O'Hear is as flummoxed as I am, since "Digg is willing to face a costly legal battle (which I'm not sure they'd win) in order to appease a portion of their user-base — even though it clearly states in the site's term of service that users need to comply with the law (the DMCA in this case)."

So I was standing at the bus stop yesterday morning, waiting for the bus and passing time by reading my news aggregator on my phone. Yes, I go online in my spare moments these days. And I happen to see this story: "BREAKING: Bus Slams Into Building in Central Austin."

Interesting, I thought -- that happens to be on my route, but "downstream," so the coming bus should still be on time. I read that

a Capital Metro bus has crashed into a building at Medical Parkway and West 39th Street, near Seton Medical Center. At least half a dozen victims are now in the hospital, with 9 more people treated on-site for minor injuries.

Shortly afterwards, my bus arrives. I immediately ask the driver what he's heard about the accident. His response was along the lines of: "Is that what happened? All I know is that they told me to take a detour." Then he quizzes me about the accident. Who was driving? What happened? How many injuries?" And then: "I need to start watching the news!"

Me, I haven't watched news broadcasts in I don't know how long. But there's certainly a market for local news, and my news aggregator fills it.

A few hours later, waiting at another bus stop, I got the details. Was it featured on a local news broadcast? Who cares?

Michael Arrington, and everyone else in the tech world, is talking about Microsoft's Silverlight, their answer to Adobe's Flash and Flex environments. Microsoft wants to make a play for the rich internet applications (RIA) sector, and apparently they have a winner:

Silverlight will be the platform of choice for developers who build rich Internet applications. It makes Flash/Flex look like an absolute toy. After the keynote, the main topic of conversation in the hallways centered on just how effectively Microsoft carried out its execution of Adobe.

Harvard professor Harvey C. Mansfield makes the case for a strong executive who sometimes supersedes the rule of law. The implications make me uneasy, but what I want to highlight here is that Mansfield approaches the question by tracing the historical development of the Constitution, including the separation of powers, and lays it out as an organizational problem: how did the Framers approach the issue that Aristotle laid out, the question of "whether it is more advantageous to be ruled by the best man or the best laws." Their answer, he contends, was to develop a system in which both cases could be true, depending on the circumstances.

FranticIndustries parses yesterday's incident on Digg, in which someone posted an exploit to get around HD-DVD encryption. Digg's people removed the post, but other Diggers kept reposting it until those posts filled the entire front page. Digg surrendered, and FranticIndustries' Stan Schroeder remarked:

But never until today has the entire Internet risen as one to protect their right of free speech, with one string of hexadecimal numbers being their defeaning shout.

This free service allows teachers to manage their classes and students can also see assignments, attendance records, and grades. It’s much more than just a gradebook, in fact. Some of the features it offers: gradebook, attendance book, homework calendar, student reports, and useful things like grading scales and weighted assignment options.

The site does not require downloads or installations; everything is web-based. The only questions might be whether it is entirely secure and private, and this will only be known with time, and also there is the possibility that information could be lost. Also it will be a test of the service to see whether it can handle years’ worth of classes as it gets used more and more.

Security is the big issue here. I can't imagine my university being sanguine about student grades ending up on someone else's servers, no matter how secure and private, unless the university has approved it.

Monday, April 30, 2007

AirTroductions is an interesting concept. Basically, you enter in your flight information and check out who else is going to be on your flight. Then, after checking out the other passengers’ profiles, you choose who you’ll be sitting next to. That way, you can make the most of your multi-hour flight. You can network, or maybe meet a love connection, or sit next to someone you just happen to know and didn’t know they’d be on the plane. So next time you’re flying, check out who else you could be sitting next to on the plane before you ever arrive at the terminal to make the most out of your hours in the sky.

I am incredibly productive on airplanes -- although I hate air travel -- because I carry 4-up printouts of everything I'm writing, and I refuse to talk to my seatmates. Can't imagine someone sitting next to me and saying, "So you're a professor at UT? How's that goin' for you?" Thanks, social networking.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

You know how you can use Last.fm to share with everyone what music you're listening to? Wakoopa promises to do the same thing, but with desktop applications:

Wakoopa’s tracker logs what applications you use and for how long, updating your personal profile every 15 minutes. On the website, the aggregate data lists the most recently used applications and most used applications of all time. Each application has a profile that lists the people and groups who use it, reviews, and tags. For free applications, it also includes a download link for various versions, potentially creating a more social SourceForge.

Implications for lifestreaming might be interesting, particularly in terms of sharing ambient workflow awareness with collaborators.